[extropy-chat] SIAI: Donate Today and Tomorrow

Adrian Tymes wingcat at pacbell.net
Fri Oct 22 15:28:25 UTC 2004


--- Eliezer Yudkowsky <sentience at pobox.com> wrote:
> The idea that absolute proof is required to deal
> with an existential risk 
> is another case of weird psychology.  Would you
> drive in a car that had a 
> 10% chance of crashing on every trip?  There's no
> *absolute proof* that 
> you'll crash, so you can safely ignore the threat,
> right?

No...but if it's a 10^-9 percent chance, then you can
maybe safely ignore it, if you're already accepting
greater risks.  Or if it's 10^-19 percent.  And
especially if you'll get enough forewarning that the
immediate chance has gotten higher (like, say, a few
seconds where it jumps to 10 percent) to do something
about it.  One needs not prove that it doesn't exist,
just that it doesn't yet merit part of one's limited
resources to deal with.

Of course, this relies on judging it to be extremely
low odds - and the set of those who do approximates
the set of those who judge the odds to be zero anyway.



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